Ranger Knox (Shifter Nation: Werebears Of Acadia Book 1)

by Meg Ripley

  “I guess you need less food if you’re not doing real fighting,” he continued, rolling his eyes up toward the ceiling as he pretended to think. He stroked his chin and screwed up his face in mock concentration in an uncanny impersonation of what Victor had done moments earlier. “Pushing a joy stick around isn’t nearly as taxing as, say, saving your old Commander’s life.”

  Jenna stood up, and a sharp silence fell over their part of the room. “Excuse me? You fight in a pod, too. I don’t see you out there working up a sweat. Oh, wait!” Jenna gasped theatrically. “Your kind does that every time you try to think. No wonder we’re crushing you.”

  More heads were turning their way. The Yazulian’s slim nostrils flared, and a pale Yazulian in the far corner rose and started inching toward them. Jenna thought about going for her laser pistol and remembered it was on the ship—no weapons were allowed on neutral ground. She didn’t understand why he was reacting this way when she was only being defensive because he attacked her first.

  “I suppose I should forgive you for that,” he said finally, but his voice shook with barely contained rage. “You guys put such a high premium on your status, evolutionarily. I guess it’s hard knowing you’re not as special as you thought, or as strong. And you’ve learned that so very often during the war…on the field and off. I can’t imagine feeling so weak.”

  “Stop,” Jenna warned, her heart racing. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t I?” The Yazulian took a step forward. “Everyone knows what happened after that fire, Horizon.”

  “Don’t!” The word came out a screech.

  “How upset did you have to be about that woman choosing your best friend over you for you to switch brigades? After all those years of that incredibly attentive…” the Yazulian’s smile widened as he paused, “…service?”

  The pale Yazulian was ten feet away from Leo 17, but Jenna was already raising her fist back behind her head to strike. Rage unfurled inside her and her vision narrowed down to a point as she launched her fist toward his mouth. There was a resounding crunch as her punch landed, and the dizzying high of victory lifted her spirits and pulled her mind away from her bloodied knuckles. Leo 17 crumpled to the floor, clutching his bleeding mouth and grunting in pain and rage. The pale Yazulian was trying to pull him away, but Leo put all of his energy into trying to retaliate, straining toward her without gaining any ground thanks to his friend’s hands. Jenna stood just out of reach, smiling and examining her aching hand as though it didn’t hurt at all. She locked eyes with him and felt another surge of bitter satisfaction.

  “How’s that for weak, asshole?”

  The pale Yazulian squealed in terror and turned to run, and the humans and Yazulians around him quickly followed. Jenna frowned.

  “It wasn’t that bad, guys,” she said, moving to step over Leo 17’s hunched body. “Well, I could’ve chosen a better insult, I guess—”

  A white-hot pain buckled every muscle in her body, and her breath stopped in her throat. She went crashing to the ground in slow motion, and finally registered the motion behind her. Two figures in gray masks held up long, silvery batons, both crackling with the energy they’d just used to incapacitate her. As Jenna’s vision faded away and she slipped out of consciousness, she thought she saw the Yazulian smile.

  ****

  She woke up on a surprisingly soft surface, and every cell in her body was alight with pain. She couldn’t do anything besides breathe, let alone move the muscles responsible for opening her eyes to see where she was. Where am I? Three short words echoing through her mind, weaving in and out of the havoc of her tortured senses. Thinking was hard when there was this much pain, and it had been so long since she remembered that fact—too long. She’d promised herself she would remember this pain after what happened with Victor and Lizzie.

  Victor.

  Lizzie.

  Leo 17.

  Everything came rushing back to her at once, and the memory slapped her so hard that it gave her the jolt she needed to push open her eyes. Her pupils shrank as light hit them, and the ceiling slowly came into focus. It was gray and unlined, nonporous and dark. One turn of her aching neck told her the walls to her left were the same, and as she rotated her head to the right, she realized she was on a bed about two feet off the ground in small room—a cell, by the look of the heavy iron door. There was another bed against the wall opposite her, and she wasn’t surprised to see Leo 17 sitting upright, gazing at her as though he’d woken her up himself.

  “Morning,” he said. “Man, you snore loud.”

  Jenna tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea forced her to lay back down. “Shut up,” she spat, but it had none of the venom she felt before. She looked at her arms and legs, but they didn’t look any different in her dark blue jumpsuit; why couldn’t she move?

  “If you’re wondering why you can’t move,” Leo 17 said, his tone conversational, “it’s because they zapped you with their prods about six times.”

  “I only felt it once,” Jenna said weakly, but her memory was awfully hazy at the moment.

  “That took you down,” the Yazulian admitted, propping his elbows on his knees and leaning forward as he addressed her. ‘Then you got up after they cuffed you and started swinging at everyone.”

  “Everyone?” Jenna echoed, surprised.

  “Everyone,” Leo 17 repeated. “You took the Gray Men down before they realized you’d gotten up, and the only reason you didn’t hit me again was that I was hiding under a table while you went nuts. Once you broke the cuffs off you even started swinging at the humans behind you.”

  Jenna moaned, a long noise filled with all the misery she could muster. “How many people were hurt?”

  “Just the Gray Men, besides me,” Leo 17 said, and he sounded impressed. The Gray Men were the highest form of policing they had, made up of anonymous soldiers from all across the galaxy who wore gray fabric masks after completing their rigorous training. “You did seem more focused on them since they were intent on taking you down. I guess anyone else struck would have been accidental, but you’ve got a wide range, so it’s surprising that you missed.”

  Jenna sighed in relief, and some of the ache went out of her muscles. She tried sitting up again and scooted sideways so she could lean against the wall and face Leo 17. “Why do you sound like you approve of me all of a sudden?”

  He laughed, and the sound was strangely comforting. “Do you notice anything about my face?”

  Jenna studied it, feeling awkward examining him so closely. He wasn’t bloody anymore, but there was a darkened patch of skin on a corner of his cheek next to his mouth that looked like the imprint of her knuckles.

  “I bruised you,” she said. “Great, but so what? Are you one of those sexists who only likes a girl if she can kick his ass?”

  “No,” Leo said. “But I am one of those Yazulians with a great healing ability. I can heal any minor damage instantly, and major damage takes only a few hours.”

  Jenna narrowed her eyes. “What? What are you saying?” Her eyes flickered to the bruise and then back to his gaze, shakily piecing together what he was telling her. “Haven’t we only been here a few hours?”

  Leo laughed. “Horizon! We’ve been here for almost two days.”

  Icy fear flooded her veins, and her lungs seized up just as they were getting used to drawing in normal amounts of air. They locked us up for two days…over a fight? The last time she’d been in an altercation on Luna, she was thrown in a cell for about two hours and fined 200 coins for slapping a subordinate. It was a single day’s pay for her, and had been entirely worth it.

  “Why have we been in here so long? Are you saying it’s connected to your bruise?”

  “No, that’s why I’m curious about you. I expect they’re more curious about how you managed to fight off five rounds of electric charges from those Gray Men’s prods when a human would normally die after three charges from one prod—and you had two on you at the sa
me time.” Leo 17 smiled, and it was so full of excitement that it was as though someone had announced an early start to the war.

  Jenna’s mind was reeling, and she didn’t want to believe his words. There had to be another reason they were in there—but why had they thrown them in a top security cell? Her body was awfully achy, and the soreness matched up with being violently shocked into being comatose for two days. But why lock them up at all? Why not put her in a hospital?

  Her eyes locked on Leo 17’s, and he smiled.

  Anger returned to her body, fast and hot. “What did you tell them? Why am I not being given medical attention?”

  His smile faded a little. “You were given medical attention, Horizon. I made sure of that.”

  “Quit calling me that!”

  Leo 17’s face took on a look of pure confusion. “But…it’s your name.”

  “Well…yes, but it’s not my first name,” Jenna said, feeling flustered.

  Her words didn’t help the Yazulian. “It matters? I hear humans call each other by their second names all the time.” He frowned. “What would you call me?”

  “Leo 17,” Jenna said, and he burst into laughter. “What?”

  “Leo is my name,” he explained. “But 17 is not. I don’t speak to humans often, so I never get a chance to correct them on this. The number is something the humans ascribed to our naming system because they couldn’t translate our words into English. The second names we have are all references to our origins. Like country names. They’re simply indicators of our birthplaces, and descriptors of those places themselves. Humans did not understand this, and postulated that since all Yazulians in a given area had the same last name, they functioned the same as group markers. We got numbers instead of our names and the confusion has not been corrected in one hundred years of fighting, nor the hundred years of peace before that.”

  Jenna stared blankly at him, feeling anger and shame simultaneously in the face of her ignorance. “I’m sorry,” she said. “So, I should just call you by your first name?” Leo nodded. “I didn’t know that.”

  He smiled. “There’s quite a lot you don’t know. I’m beginning to realize it’s not your fault.”

  Jenna bristled, feeling defensive even though he was being perfectly polite. A sharp buzz sounded through the room, and they both jumped as a flap in the door slid open, and two soft packages of food were pushed through, followed by two long bottles of water. Leo stood and hurried to retrieve the items, and Jenna realized then how very hungry she was.

  The Yazulian was already moving toward her bed, the package slit open and outstretched in his hand. “I’m going to set this next to you, is that okay?”

  Jenna started to scoff until she saw that there was a glimmer of real fear in his eyes. Whatever she’d done while she blacked out had been monstrous, and it filled her with shame; I’m even more broken than I thought.

  “Hey,” Leo said, his voiced panicked. “Uh…hey!” He knelt by her bedside and set the food and water beside her, peering up into her face with a look of alarm. She started to ask what the hell he was doing before she felt the tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Jenna raised her hands to brush them away and cried out as pain tore through her again. “Dammit!” she yelled, slumping back against the wall as the sensation slowly receded. Maybe she could just lay there until she died; that seemed like a plausible solution.

  Leo cleared his throat, and she looked down to find him holding his golden brown hands up above hers.

  “I think I can help you,” he said. “Please. Let me help.”

  “No!” Jenna said, and he dropped his hands immediately but didn’t back away.

  “Why not?” he asked patiently.

  Because you’re a freak, she wanted to say, but she knew it was her pain and anger talking; mostly, anyway. Jenna was starting to think she had some toxic, deeply ingrained beliefs that helped her transform over five years from a bright, eager soldier to a jaded, lonely member of the warrior elite. She thought Leo was a freak—but why? Because their species had been fighting for as long as she’d been alive, and their ancestors had been fighting for even longer? If there was anything Jenna was good at, it was recognizing rock bottom, and she knew that this time, rock bottom was holding on to a red-hot hatred that was clearly burning her up from the inside.

  Leo seemed to sense the shift in her attitude. He raised his hands again. “Can I please help you to feel better?”

  Jenna started to nod, but it hurt too much. She spoke instead: “Please.”

  Leo lowered his hands over hers and closed his eyes. Astoundingly, the soft glow in his skin brightened as heat started to roll from his skin in gentle waves, sliding over and around her body as though it were knitting a healing cocoon just for her. After a moment, she realized it might not be a bad analogy; the heat curled tighter around her and intensified, and her pain got lighter and less intense, until it finally bled away entirely. When he opened his eyes, Leo smiled, and Jenna saw that the bruise around his mouth was gone.

  “How do you feel?” he asked softly, and there was a touch of anxiety in his voice.

  “Better,” Jenna said, and she meant it. She shrugged her shoulders and moved her head from side to side. There was a light ache, but nothing she couldn’t manage. “Thank you…so much.” Her cheeks burned with embarrassment, and she cursed her aversion to this kind of moment.

  Leo smiled. “No problem. It gave me a little kick, too.”

  “Your bruise is gone,” Jenna pointed out.

  “Cool.” Leo paused. “So, not that I’m not enjoying this, but could you let go? I kind of wanted to drink some water.”

  Jenna looked down and saw that she’s turned her hands over and laced her fingers through his while he’d healed her. She snatched her hands back, mortified, but Leo laughed heartily and patted her leg.

  “It’s ok. I’m flattered, really.”

  “It’s not a side effect of the healing?” Jenna asked, avoiding his eyes. “I thought I heard about an aphrodisiac affect to your healing powers.”

  “Another misconception,” Leo said, sounding tired. “And a kind of offensive one, at that, started by some women who couldn’t believe they were attracted to Yazulian trash.”

  Jenna flinched, and the smile on Leo’s face grew sad.

  “I know that’s what you call us.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jenna said, feeling ashamed. “I don’t know why I’m such an asshole.”

  Leo seemed to find that funny. “I don’t think you’re an asshole. Not anymore, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well…” Leo hesitated. “I used to believe stories from when I was a child about humans. They experimented on us for fun, for example, and caught bad Yazulian children and took them to science labs.”

  “No!” Jenna gasped. “They told you that?”

  “Yes,” Leo said simply. “I also heard that you were all allergic to the sun, and that was why you got darker underneath it, instead of brighter.”

  Jenna giggled despite herself. “That would be sad. But those are some pretty wild rumors. How do you believe stuff like that?”

  Leo smiled wryly. “How do you believe things such as a seductive healing power, or that we aren’t as smart as you? Doesn’t it just start by someone saying it’s true and another person accepting it? That’s all it takes.” He shrugged and crossed his legs in front of him.

  Jenna dropped her gaze, and Leo seemed to see that he’d embarrassed her.

  “And it isn’t your fault,” he continued hurriedly. “These things aren’t necessarily caused by you. It seems like you’re told a lot of things from birth…and a lot of things are held back.”

  Jenna scoffed. “You keep saying that. What kind of things aren’t they telling us? And what are they lying to us about?”

  Leo opened his mouth to speak, but the door to their cell swung open so fast the door crashed against the wall. They both jumped to their feet, but it was just a non-descript c
ommander of one of the ground brigades. His round face was slightly red, and his beady eyes were bouncing between them as though he’d expected them to be doing something else.

  “Level 17 Leo 17, you are free to go. You have been docked one thousand coins and are forbidden from the cafeteria for one month. A-Level Jenna Horizon, you are free to go. Here is your official warning insignia. If you are caught fighting again, you may be subject to further disciplinary action. You are both grounded on Luna for one week. Return to your barracks.”

  The commander walked away, leaving the red patch to flutter to the ground as they both stared at the space where he’d been. Feeling numb, Jenna bent over and picked up the slim red square, peeling the patch from its backing before slapping it on the side of her jumpsuit. Sentencing usually happened in a separate cell with your own commander, but she’d never seen that man before in her life. And why had Leo been docked a thousand coins? Something wasn’t right here; Jenna started to down the hall after the commander, then froze in her tracks. Did he say both of them had been grounded? She turned around, intending to ask Leo what he planned to do, but he was already walking the other way, his broad back moving as fast as he could go. Annoyed, she sprinted after him, calling his name.

  He turned and glanced at her, but he didn’t stop moving. She caught up with him when he was nearly to his barracks, and she wondered how he moved so fast.

  “I was calling you,” Jenna huffed.

  “I know.” The chill in Leo’s words was clear, and Jenna nearly tripped over her own feet in surprise. He’d been friendly in the cell, almost flirty, and that had been when they had no idea when they would get out. What had changed? Was it the sentencing?

  “Leo, I don’t know why they charged you more than me,” she said pleadingly under her breath, trotting to keep up with his astoundingly quick pace. “Or why they banned you from the cafeteria. I’m sorry, but I didn’t—”

  “No, I’m sorry,” Leo spat, stopping and rounding on her. “I guess I gave you the wrong impression back there. I don’t care, Horizon. I don’t give a shit.”